Good evening.
I sit here this evening as chair of the CARP St. John's-Avalon chapter. CARP, for those know the acronym, is the Canadian Association of Retired Persons. Our CARP membership in Newfoundland and Labrador is more than 1,000. In addition, I'm chair of the Newfoundland and Labrador Coalition of Pensioners, Retirees, and Seniors Organizations.
Seniors represent the single most powerful segment of our society. According to the census of 2011 for Newfoundland and Labrador, the population of persons aged 55 years and over is 163,880. If you extend the relationship of these persons to include adult children and other connected persons, the range of outreach and usage by those persons extends to well over 300,000. This represents real power when it comes to public awareness on issues that have an impact on them, and it is important that the voices of older persons are recognized with the information, knowledge, and credibility that they bring to matters influencing public policy, so CARP St. John's-Avalon chapter and the coalition appreciate the opportunity to bring forward the perspective of older persons through this presentation this evening.
It is recognized that the cost to deliver postal services has increased dramatically. In addition, the dynamics associated with living in a digital age must be examined and considered in the interests of efficiency and effectiveness and to reduce the burden of cost from the shoulders of the taxpayer. This is not an easy task, and there remains a highly emotional attachment to services that are available through personal delivery. This nostalgic attachment to receiving your personal letters, parcels at holiday times, and greetings and other holiday occasion cards should be maintained until such time as the demand for this service through Canada Post has ceased. In other words, until citizens have completely transitioned away from mailing cards or parcels or businesses have completely discontinued paper invoicing, advertising, and other services, home delivery must continue as an essential service.
If it is believed and accepted that all citizens, especially older citizens, have a right to essential services, and if it is recognized that home delivery is one of these essential services and that it must be delivered to the address of the recipient, then this service should not have to pay for itself. Do not look for the solution to be discontinuance of a service, but look to other ways to finance the service. If it is deemed an essential service, it becomes a service that is funded by the government, just like any other essential service, such as policing and fire services, health services, and so on. Some services, no matter how efficient one tries to make them, will always be in the red; then we have to simply accept this and move on without continuously charging the consumer for the service.
If the solution is to transition from physical mail delivery to online delivery, this will create more hardships than might be necessary. From the seniors' perspective, I have four points to make in that regard.
Many seniors do not have access to computers, and others are unwilling to enter personal information. A 2009 Statistics Canada study revealed that only 21% of individuals over the age of 75 were online. When CARP last polled our members, 70% indicated they were online, but half of those actually used computers that belonged to children or grandchildren.
Secondly, community mailboxes are not the answer. Besides being a community eyesore sometimes, they put the vulnerable at risk in two ways, as my colleagues have already indicated: in inclement conditions, the risk of a fall increases significantly, and even in good weather, the mailbox is a target for vandalism, as pension and other assistance cheques may be targeted by thieves, so security becomes an issue.
As well, just in case you're not aware, seniors have a tendency to get shorter as they get older. If your mailbox is on the top level, it's just impossible to reach the lock or to look inside your box to see what might be there for you to retrieve.
Relying on family members to pick up and deliver mail is not the answer. Senior persons are intensely private and wish to maintain their independence and dignity as long as possible. They prefer to keep their affairs to themselves, which is ensured when their personal mail is delivered directly to them. In addition, family members picking up and delivering mail also puts seniors at risk of financial abuse, as someone else will be collecting their cheques. Most recently, there's been an identification of problems with the locking mechanism on these mailboxes, to the extent that Canada Post is having to entertain certain excessive costs in order to replace those locks.
I have one last point to make, if I may. This has to do with the information in your discussion paper on Canada Post in the digital age. I offer a final point on the matter of the cost of running Canada Post by the federal government, which needs to consider all efficiencies. To a consumer, a post office is a post office, whether it's in a large corporate structure, a counter in a community drugstore, or a private room in a home in a very remote area. As long as the Canada Post sign is visible to the customer and personal service can be accessed more easily, take the actions that are needed for cost efficiencies to physical locations while still maintaining a service for seniors.